Come to think of it, isn't 0 the true minimum score to start the Pit with?  Seems like you should be able to use the stair trick in 1-1 to lose points all the way down to 0.  So long as you don't level up early, at any rate.

When you jump on the Koopa in 1-1 until it starts giving you negative points.  Sadly, it'll die before you get a net loss.  I did do a run with the (non-catch-card) minimum 2600 points yesterday, though.  I nearly got to level 11 (360,000 points), and if I hadn't forgotten I had a Stop Watch on floor 99, I definitely would have.  Peach is a whole ton less necessary than I would have guessed.

I almost want to do a no-Peach run of it at minimum score now rather than uploading the first run; I still had four of my initial items left, and several extras besides... 

All that for at most 600 fewer points, which are completely made worthless when I skipped a few thousand's worth anyway in the Pit?  Yeah, I don't see the point.  All the coins I need for the items I took last time, which were already more than enough, are either already in the levels or can be gained by selling the three Super Cards available at that point (they net ~150, iirc).  I entered with a good 100 extra without even selling two of the cards, as well.

Well, I just finished the run; it wasn't nearly as difficult as I would have guessed.  I did find a way to exploit the negative points from the Koopa in 1-1 to knock my score down to 0, and it only took an extra half-hour of prep.

Also, I lost an awesome 30 minutes of footage because I didn't realize that Chain Chomps were impervious to POW Blocks.

05EC66C5 08000000
02B07BEA 000000XX

For level XX (in hex), though I don't know what the first line does.  It's very glitchy if you try to go up/down ranks, and glitchier still if you use level 0.  As for the negative points, I hit the shell 15 times on the stairs, getting 5500 (100-200-...-1000) plus-points, then negative 4000 (1000-900-800-700-600); then I bounced onto a Squig I carried over to the stairs to lose an additional 2200, and if I was lucky, I'd bounce back onto the Koopa for another -400.  I think that's how the score worked, it may have been a few hundred off.  At any rate, it only took a few runs to get 2600 points down to 0.

Hey ParadoX, you had a code for changing the score in Super Paper Mario; do you have a code to set your level as well?  I'd like to mess around with it a bit.

I guess I can just experiment with the score code in Dolphin and repeatedly level up to test for potential addresses.  Or just check right near the score in data first to make sure it's not obvious.  Apparently they're like 0x10 apart in the PAL version.

EDIT: Wait, are you sure 04511a40 00000000 works for score in the US version?  Because that's the same as the PAL address.

EDIT again: NTSC-U Codes.

Level: 024CEA2C 0000XXXX (Automatically updates next-level Score)
Attack: 024CEA30 0000XXXX
Current HP: 024CEA34 0000XXXX
Maximum HP: 024CEA38 0000XXXX
Score: 044CEA40 XXXXXXXX

Interestingly, all of these seem to work with 32-bit values, despite the fact that numbers over three digits aren't ever used for anything but Score.  Also, the next level Score values are actually shown for any level from 0 to whatever, excluding 99.  I typed in 128 and it gave me a next level Score of 41600000 = 64*65*10000, as it would be from the formula in the lower levels.

Also, the run's going to be uploaded in six parts on Wednesdays and Saturdays; hopefully by the end I'll have completed my next project.  I'm going to keep uploading SS+ biweekly in the meantime, unless I manage to get way ahead.